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I loved her and I think she loved me, but on a practical level, Elizabeth was not the woman I needed in my life. With Elizabeth, there was a great deal of maintenance. This is not a woman who gets up in the morning and fixes breakfast: by the time she comes downstairs for breakfast, it's time for dinner.

Elizabeth's life is built completely around Elizabeth and she needs a man to service her life 24/7.

Best of times: 'Every girl wanted you,' Robert Wagner recalls of his life as a young star in Hollywood

She also has the most spectacularly bad luck with illness. It needs to be said, however, that Elizabeth is not a hypochondriac. Just as there are people who are accident-prone, there are people who are illness-prone, and Elizabeth is one of them.

Once, when I was visiting her, she was getting into a car and the man helping her slammed the door. It blew out her eardrum.

Just thinking about Elizabeth's physical troubles is exhausting; I can't imagine what it must be like to have to live with them.

When I arrived at Fox as a bright-eyed 18-year-old, Darryl Zanuck was the boss and the old studio system still ruled. The head of publicity was a wonderful man named Harry Brand, who wore a fedora and was, as they say, heavily connected.

Harry helped me out on a few occasions. There were a couple of incidents involving women in hotel rooms who would then promptly scream: 'I'm pregnant!' It was never true. Harry took care of things for me.

The publicity department would also arrange dates for me with young actresses such as Lori Nelson or Debra Paget. We would go out to dinner and a dance, accompanied by a photographer. The result would be placed in a fan magazine, an artificial story about a non-existent relationship, but one that served to keep the names of young talents in the public eye. Young actors like me accepted it as part of the job.

The real affairs, however, had considerably more charm. One night, I met the great actress Joan Crawford at a cocktail party and was surprised when she suggested I follow her back to her house. When we got there, she invited me for a swim, telling me there were some trunks down by the pool and I could help myself. I did so and got in the pool.

After a few minutes, Joan, who was 25 years older than me, came out of the house with nothing on, dived gracefully off the board, swam the length of the pool underwater and came up right between my legs.

'Hi there!' she said in her most vivacious voice. It was a lovely, creative invitation and I responded accordingly.

It was a memorable one-night stand, as was another around the same time, even if it took three days. It happened when I drove my convertible into a drive-in restaurant called Jack's at the beach.

Three-day tryst: Yvonne De Carlo

The top was down, the day was lovely. I spotted Yvonne De Carlo, who starred in films noir like Brute Force and later played Lily in The Munsters.

We looked each other over and she nodded her head for me to come over. So I parked and got into her car.

'I'm Robert Wagner.' 'I know. I'm Yvonne De Carlo.' 'I know. I'm such a fan of yours.' One thing led to another and we went back to her house.

Three days later, I staggered out, depleted and dishevelled. I wasn't sure what month it was, but I dimly remembered leaving my car at the drive-in. Luckily, it was still parked where I'd left it.

A week later I ran into Tony Curtis, another rising young actor at the time. 'You can't imagine what just happened to me,' he said. 'I pull into Jack's at the beach. Yvonne De Carlo pulls up next to me! She looks at me, I look at her. Well, to make a long story short...'

I stared at him, then began laughing hysterically. Baby, I was in the movies.

Commercial success wasn't far behind. After I appeared in the film Darryl met her in 1951, placed her under contract then placed her in his bed. Or it may have been the other way around.

Anyway, he paid her gambling debts, decided he'd make her a star and changed her name. Her real name was Bayla Wegier and she'd been in a concentration camp in the Second World War.

Bella made it clear to me she would like us to have some private sessions that would have nothing to do with acting. I never thought her particularly beautiful, but she did have great personal presence.

Did I consider going to bed with her? God Almighty, no! I would never have poached on Darryl's territory. Mrs Wagner didn't raise a fool; I went on my way.

Pool seduction: Joan Crawford

The first woman I really loved was Barbara Stanwyck, whom I met while filming, in this case on the set of the 1953 version of Titanic. There was an immediate chemistry; a lot of looks across the room.

Barbara was a legend. She had made classics for great directors, among them Meet John Doe for Frank Capra and Double Indemnity for Billy Wilder.

During filming for Titanic, the director had a party. I escorted Barbara and stayed close to her throughout the evening. I was terribly attracted to her, but I couldn't tell if she returned the favour. She was friendly, but not overly so. When the party was over, I drove her back to her house and took her key to open the front door.

As I fumbled with the lock, I wondered whether she would invite me in, or just take her key and thank me for a lovely evening. Then I turned and saw an expression I hadn't seen in her eyes before: appreciation and desire.

I immediately took her in my arms and kissed her. We went into the house, we opened a bottle of champagne, we danced. I left at dawn.

My affair with Barbara was one of the most marvellous relationships of my life. I was 22, she was 45, but our ages were beside the point. She was everything to me: a beautiful woman with a great sense of humour. For the next four years, we were part of each other's lives. In a way, we still are.

We only had one scene together in Titanic - I played her daughter's boyfriend! - but she still taught me so much about acting.

I had been with girls and I had been with women, but I had never been with a woman with Barbara's knowledge and taste. She had just divorced when we met and was at a vulnerable moment. The 40s are a dangerous age for any woman, especially for an actress whose work is her identity.

What ultimately broke us up was the fact that our affair couldn't go anywhere: it was a classic backstreet romance. She finally sat me down and told me she loved me, but ...

I couldn't argue with her reasoning. There was no way we could have been married at that time. I would have always been Mr Stanwyck and we both knew it - that's how it came to an end.

Towards the end of Barbara's life, a burglar broke into her house and pistol-whipped her, an attack that sent her into a downward spiral. When she was in the hospital, dying, I called but she asked me not to come and see her; she wanted me to remember her as she was. I honoured her request.

As we talked, she told me she was wearing a four-leaf clover necklace I had given her. Barbara was cremated wearing it. That a piece of me remained with her at the end was some consolation for her loss.

Interruption: Anita Ekberg and Robert were disturbed by Howard Hughes

As my star rose at Fox, I realised that not all studio attempts to engineer relationships were benign. After Titanic, I made Beneath The 12-Mile Reef, an adventure movie in which I co-starred with an actress called Terry Moore.

During shooting, Terry got weepy and told me she was pregnant. The father was the producer and industrialist Howard Hughes.

Obviously, she told a few other people as well, because the studio shocked us both by releasing a story that we were engaged. They never told me they were going to do this - it just appeared in the papers.

I was livid: I was still involved with Barbara at the time. The studio was trying to railroad Terry and me into a marriage for its own convenience. They evidently thought I would succumb to the pressure and the resulting marriage would be great for the movie, great for my career and, not coincidentally, great for the studio.

I refused. The wedding never happened and for that matter neither did the baby. Fox didn't actually retract the story so much as let it dry up.

Now I'm not going to pretend there were many negatives to being a young star in Hollywood at that time. Every reporter wanted to talk to you and every girl wanted you.

But there were pitfalls, some of which were comic, some painful. Some contrived to be both, as I found with Howard Hughes, the man who caused such difficulties for me and Terry Moore, and Swedish starlet Anita Ekberg.

Chemistry: Barbara Stanwyck was Robert's first true love

I first met Anita when she came to the RKO studios, before Federico Fellini was to make her immortal in La Dolce Vita. I took one look at her and was reduced to the level of a hormonal schoolboy.

Luckily, she responded to me the same way. The fact that she had been staked out by RKO owner Hughes was irrelevant to me.

Anita and I were enjoying ourselves in an apartment when there was a knock on the door. I looked out of the window and - Sweet Jesus! - it was Howard Hughes. His truculent reputation preceded him. I threw on my clothes and fled out of the back door, with Hughes running after me.

I was sprinting across the lawn when I kicked a sprinkler head, opened up a nasty slash in my brand-new shoes, lost my balance and tumbled ass over tea kettle. I was not only young, I was nimble; I sprang up and kept running.

Fifty years on, I would just like to go on the record as saying an afternoon with Anita Ekberg was worth the destruction not just of a pair of new shoes, but of an entire wardrobe.

• Pieces Of My Heart by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman is published by Hutchinson on March 5, price £18.99. To order your copy at the special price of £17.10 inc p&p call the Review Bookstore on 0845 1550713.